How Russia Could Help Solve the North Korea Crisis

In 2016, significant disputes broke out between the White House and the Pentagon regarding how much to prioritize cooperation with China on North Korea versus confrontation regarding developments in the South China Sea. Now the Trump administration appears to have settled this argument, at least for now, favoring cooperating with China in order to encourage Beijing to help keep Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions in check. Not only has President Trump said that China’s resolute action on the North Korean issue would be rewarded in the context of China-U.S. trade negotiations, but it was also revealed last week that Washington has seemingly opted to dial back pressure on China in the South China Sea.

This apparent shift in strategic priorities is actually long overdue. As argued many times in this forum, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is genuinely much more dangerous for U.S. national security (and its allies) than arcane arguments about “reefs, rocks and low-tide elevations” in the South China Sea. However, there is still a major problem built into the logic of current U.S. policy: the dubious assumption that Beijing certainly has the power and will to rein in Pyongyang on its own. As an unsigned editorial from Global Times [环球时报] intoned back in mid-March: “Washington . . . clearly understands that Beijing cannot ‘control’ Pyongyang. . . . North Korea is a completely independent and sovereign state” [华盛顿…明明知道北京‘控制’不了平壤.朝鲜是完全独立自主国家]. This is not to say that Beijing’s role is not primary. Of course, it has more power and leverage than any other relevant actor. Still, China will need the active support of all other Northeast Asian states in order to guide the Korean Peninsula to a “safe landing” in the current storm. Japan, South Korea, and the United States all have major roles to play—following China’s lead—along the path of de-escalation, freeze and eventual disarmament. But the position and potential of Russia have been perhaps most neglected by analysts of the unfolding crisis.

Moscow’s role on the Korean Peninsula has been generally derided in Western media as alternatively inattentive, ineffectual or even deleterious. Chinese interpretations have been decidedly more welcoming to increasing Russian attention to the North Korea issue, an apparent trend since the 2014 Ukraine crisis. Indeed, an appraisal under the headline “North Korea and Russia Embrace” [朝俄拥抱] in the leading magazine Finance and Economics [财经] at the conclusion of 2014 concluded: “China wants to see North Korea break out of its foreign policy isolation, so if Russia and North Korea improve economic ties, this will lighten the long-time burden on China.” At the end of March 2017, Chinese TV news gave effusive praise to the sortie of Russia’s Pacific Fleet into the Sea of Japan as a military counter to U.S. and Japanese strategic pressure in and around the Korean Peninsula.

At the same time, Russia’s defense leaders were also indicating greater solidarity with Chinese assessments of the Korean situation, such as in a headline from Izvestiya a few weeks back: “General Staff: U.S. Missile Defense System Threatens the Nuclear Forces of Both Russia and China” [Генштаб: система ПРО США угрожает ядерным силам РФ и КНР]. And the Russian military press did not miss the double meaning of the Syria strike, with headlines afterward such as “Syria Has Been Hit, So North Korea Will Be Hit Next?” [Ударил по Сирии, ударит и по Северной Корее?]

A detailed and comprehensive analysis of Russia’s policy toward the Korean Peninsula was published in the Chinese academic journal Northeast Asia Forum [东北亚论坛]. The authors explain several reasons why North Korean nuclear weapons are a “direct attack against Russian national interests.” Such instances of nuclear proliferation, it is explained, dilute Russia’s status as a nuclear superpower and also threaten the credibility of the UN Security Council, a vital status symbol for Moscow. Also, the authors suggest that continuing tensions on the Korean Peninsula form a significant obstacle to the further economic development of the Russian Far East. Noting that Russia lacks for economic leverage, the analysis does still emphasize “the continuing significance . . . [of Russia’s] enormous military power” [强大的军事力量…仍然具有重要意义].